MICA graduate Louis Fratino will be featured at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) soon, when the Maryland native opens his exhibition, “Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light Again”. The exhibition will be on view at the BMA from March 11–Sept. 6, 2026.
“Fratino and Matisse” will feature approximately 30 works by the contemporary artist, Fratino, and the French master, Matisse, 15 works from each. The exhibition will demonstrate the influence the latter has on the former and include iconic paintings, drawings, interiors, still lifes, and self-portraits. There will be dynamic pairings and groups to convey an intergenerational dialogue between the two artists.
Among the works will be two new paintings by Fratino– “September flowers” and “Studio nude”– and other works that have not been exhibited before. “Fratino and Matisse” will be part of a suite of Matisse exhibitions opening at the BMA the same month, including “Matisse and Martinique: Portraits and Poetry” and “Matisse in Vence: The Stations of the Cross”.
Fratino’s works center his lived experience and his reverence for the traditions of European and American modernists. His art often depicts warm domestic spaces and intimate portraits that spotlight queer love, desire and beauty. He has been described as “a star of the Venice Biennale” where his work was featured in 2024, and his work has been in many museum and gallery shows. At auctions his paintings routinely fetch six figures.
Born in Annapolis, Maryland, and educated at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Fratino spent considerable time with the BMA’s extensive Matisse collection. The BMA houses the world’s largest public collection of works by Matisse, with more than 1,600 paintings, drawings, prints, and illustrated books.
Fratino was especially interested in Matisse’s mastery of line, color, and atmosphere, and it significantly influences his own work. Where Matisse portrayed the idealized and abstract female nude form, Fratino focused on the male body, using his artistic gaze to expand the perspective of what constitutes beauty in a nude form.
“It’s the idea that art manifests a kind of attention or a vision for your life, that it can be a beautiful life despite certain circumstances that may be happening around you,” Fratino said. “In Matisse’s case, he lived through the First and Second World Wars. Painting can confirm that life is beautiful and that it’s worth looking at. I do feel that it gives back to me that way: I see my surroundings and my garden or the people I’m around differently because I’ve had the opportunity to paint them. That’s a feeling I get from Matisse. By keeping one eye on art history and one eye on life, I leave room for myself to enter the conversation.”
Fratino chose each of the Matisse works in the exhibition, selecting many produced in Nice, France in which the artist emphasized light-filled interiors and female models at leisure.
The exhibition is co-curated by Virginia Anderson, senior curator of American Art and department head, American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and Katy Rothkopf, the Anne and Ben Cone Memorial Director of the Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies and senior curator of European Painting and Sculpture.
Amy Sherald is also a former MICA student, and her work is currently on display at the BMA. Her exhibition, “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” set an attendance record for the BMA, which is running the exhibition through April 5, 2026. As of Jan 20, 52, 597 people had seen the exhibition or purchased tickets since its opening on Nov. 2, 2025.
